MAPCL, Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion (BACI) and Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture hosted a forum called “Wide Angle Lens” and sponsored films in the Vancouver Film Festival during Community Living month.

Wide Angle Lens debuted at SFU’s Harbour Centre and was well attended by over 70 participants from community living organizations and the general public. Anthony Di Salvo, Director of the Sprout Travelling Film Festival, introduced the films and gave a brief history of how the festival came to be.  Sprout is a New York City based non-profit organization, dedicated to bringing innovative programming to people with developmental disabilities.

Sprout has been making videos related to the field of developmental disabilities since 1995 and has witnessed the benefits these videos have for this population and the general public. By presenting films of artistry and intellect, the festival hopes to reinforce accurate portrayals of people with developmental disabilities and expose the media and general public to important issues facing this population. The goal is an enjoyable and enlightening experience that will help breakdown stereotypes, promoting a greater acceptance of differences and awareness of similarities. 

The first film was Hands Away; a dance video displaying people with disabilities dancing to music mostly by themselves.  The comments from the group were “beautiful in every way”, and “this will shatter perceptions”.  Anthony Di Salvo added after that this film was presented to another organization to play at their film festival and the organization said it was “too sexy” and didn’t want to play it.  Anthony said “This is exactly why it should be shown”.  It was a wonderful depiction of self, feelings, freedom, and ‘making the invisible visible’, as he would say.

The next film was a music video by Laz-D, and almost had people out of their seats dancing. One time I turned around to look at the crowd and everyone was bouncing to the beat in their seats.  Every one said “Pretty Awesome”.

 The day followed with a few more films, ‘How do I feel about that’, ‘Dream Lover’, and ‘King of Camp’.  These were all wonderful films which everyone really enjoyed.

The audience wanted to know how they could make their own films and participate.  Wide Angle Lens sparked a lot of discussion around programs and services around our local area, and how to start to offer programs locally.  Vancouver considered ‘Hollywood North’, is an ideal place to foster relationships with talented film personnel to add technical expertise.

The afternoon portion of the program, featured films that were all created, produced, and directed by persons with disabilities.  This program was funded by SFU, BACI and the National Film Board of Canada. Specific criteria had to me met, including a story length of two minutes, up to 200 words, told in the 1st person, with original art work and narrated by the author.  The supported film maker was paired up with an assistant to help them illustrate their vision on screen.  One of the directors stated, “I was privileged to make what I wanted; it was my vision from beginning to end”.  We watched seven short films, about Autism, family pets, friends, love stories and overcoming extreme challenges.  It was wonderful to see the variety of submissions and artistic ideas!

BC Center for Disability Media was also present at the workshop, to reveal their Can Assist Polecam Power Chair (see http://www.canassist.ca/polecampowerchair for video clips and photos).  This chair was created to assist people with disabilities who are confined to a wheelchair to make films.  Similar versions of this chair (with the joy stick capability and robotics) have been made for films such as Lord of the Rings.  It takes 10,000 hours to master the skill of a joy stick, which is approximately three years in a wheelchair. The cost to train a person on the joy stick to the mastery level would cost thousands of dollars, as well as 10 000 hours of training time.  People confined to wheelchairs who use a joy stick are masters of these skills.  One of the goals of BC Center for Disability Media is to show the film industry the value of including people with disabilities in their film crews.

Later on that evening, The Horse Boy was launched at the Vancouver Film Festival, sponsored by MAPCL and its partners BACI and Kickstart. It is the story of 2-year-old Rowan who is diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson, a writer and former horse trainer, and his wife, Kristin Neff, a psychology professor, who had sought the best possible medical care for their son, and found that traditional therapies had little effect. Then they discovered that Rowan has a profound affinity for animals, particularly horses, and the family set off on a quest. The story follows the Texan couple and their autistic son on trek on horseback through Outer Mongolia in an attempt to treat autism with shamanic healing.